


walled up your kingdom with radio wires

by Ronabird



Series: build me no shrines [3]
Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Daemons, Daemon Touching, M/M, No beta we die like archival assistants, Written in a Single Afternoon, and official shitposts, no need to read the longer one first, of course the lukases give their daemons glaringly obvious latin names, see notes for warnings and spoilers list, standalone fic, who am i to resist a good bandwagon, with excellent fanart
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-31
Updated: 2020-05-31
Packaged: 2021-03-03 05:27:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,343
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24465679
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ronabird/pseuds/Ronabird
Summary: Peter often makes wagers with the man who calls himself Elias Bouchard. He doesn't often lose them.This is one of those few.
Relationships: Elias Bouchard/Peter Lukas
Series: build me no shrines [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1767109
Comments: 14
Kudos: 142





	walled up your kingdom with radio wires

"Really, Elias," says Peter, "you know how difficult this is for me. You should at least return the favor."

He smells of brine and cold fog. He always does. The present overtone is of Elias’s good Scotch, though, which burns warm on his tongue and in the back of his throat. Elias tips his head, slow and languorous, to savor the heat. He raises his glass in mocking acknowledgement, and Peter, sat across from him, gives one of those grand heavy sighs. It makes his shoulders rise and fall: with him crammed into one of Elias’s very luxurious sitting-room chairs, this is a bit like watching a mountain shift.

"I _would_ , Peter," Elias says, sweet as anything. "But my dear Virgil is presently occupied."

It is a bread crumb; it is a baited fishing line. For all that Elias knows Peter very, _very_ well, the man knows comparably little about him. It is something of a default to play one’s cards close to the chest, at Elias’s age. It makes the act of dropping little tidbits of information so much more _enjoyable_.

And Peter, for his part, gives another of those slow and heavy sighs. Elias watches his shoulders with warm, half-hazy _glee_.

"You always say that," says Peter, apparently resigned. He rolls his glass of Scotch in one massive hand. "You never tell me anything _about_ him, Elias. That was the point of this wager."

"Which you lost," Elias agrees, eyebrows arching as he sips his Scotch. Single malt; it is _good_. He can feel the heat shivering all through him. His first stolen bodies hadn’t been so receptive, so _detailed_ in their capacity for experience. Again, the benefits of age. "So I’m _very_ excited to meet Relicta. I’m sure she’ll be _gorgeous_."

Peter scoffs, a heavy huff of breath, and sets his glass aside with a little clink. Elias is disappointed to see that he doesn’t drain it, first, but no matter. They’ll get there. There’s already a faint flush high on Peter’s cheeks, from the first round. That may be enough for his purposes.

Elias watches, sprawled warm and pleased in his chair, as Peter goes to open the window. It slides open with a gentle sound— Elias’s flat exists for the express purpose of entertaining Lukases and their like, so it’s worth keeping in good repair— and the damp London chill rolls in. Or perhaps that’s just Peter’s influence, as the man tries and fails to hide the emotion building in him. Elias can _see_ it just below the surface, swirling like turbulent fog.

"Come on in, love," Peter calls to the mist outside the window, and for all that his tone tries for _resigned_ , there is an undercurrent of tension there. "Come and visit."

He whistles. Not with the stupid little brass thing around his neck, which Elias would _not_ welcome the use of in his home— but softly, through his lips. The movement makes his beard bristle, fluffy and white like one more fog cloud. Elias considers the sight from his very comfortable position in the chair.

There are no wingbeats to signal her arrival, but perhaps that is rather the point, with an albatross. They can glide aloft, touching nothing, seen by nothing but the empty sea, for days and days.

Irritatingly overt, that.

She is simply there, all of a sudden, at the window. It is a wide window, but her landing is still amusingly graceless: each of the bird’s wings is nearly as long as Elias is tall. She comes tumbling in, beating those massively long wings against Elias’s sleek hardwood bookshelves. Something presently unimportant, though probably expensive, goes crashing to the floor.

Elias does not care: he is focused entirely on the daemon now reshuffling her wings to fold neatly against her back, settling into his upscale London flat. The contrast is deeply entertaining. She looks _exactly_ right for Peter: utterly massive, white as salt rime, with dark thoughtful eyes. She fixes these on Elias, not on her other half, which he finds fascinating.

"Hello, Relicta," says Elias, and is gratified by Peter’s low grumble at the impropriety of speaking directly to someone’s daemon. "I’ve been very eager to meet you. Tell me, how long has it been since you saw Peter last?"

In return, she regards him impassively for a long moment— Elias, through the warmth of his Scotch, is delighted— and then turns her long head to Peter.

"He doesn’t know you very well, does he?"

Peter laughs as though he’s been struck: short and pained, and a little grateful, below that.

"No," he says in response, "I suppose not."

Elias steeples his fingers and draws his expression into polite interest, which he is often fondly informed by Peter is his version of a pout. Well, he thinks of the response as fond, even if Peter doesn’t mean it to be. All this does, unfortunately, require him to set down his glass of Scotch.

"I would be delighted at the opportunity," says Elias in his most diplomatic voice, which makes Peter snort again, "to know Peter better. And to know _you_ , Relicta, should the distinction be necessary."

She regards him again, at that, and this time does not drop the assessing look even when Peter shifts in discomfort. With nothing better to do, the man returns to his chair.

"What game is this?" she asks, without looking away from him, and Elias smiles that she understands.

"It’s always something, with him," says Peter in tired reply. "We’ve been over this, love. He wanted to meet you."

"He calls you ‘love’," says Elias, still greatly enjoying addressing the daemon directly, because Peter continues to sink into his chair in discomfort and Relicta just keeps staring. She’s remarkably unabashed about the impoliteness, which is delightful. "I’d imagine personal endearments are rather uncommon, for an avatar of the Lonely."

"You imagine incorrectly," she informs him. "Being close to oneself doesn’t _harm_ loneliness. It helps."

"Oh?" Elias props his chin on a hand, fingers lightly curled. "Do enlighten me."

"Really, Elias," starts Peter, but his daemon steps forward to carry on the conversation without him. He gives another little breath of a laugh, as though it hurts and as though he likes it. Elias knows he does; it is part of why he planned things this way. Elias is not _unkind_.

Not in any way Peter doesn’t enjoy, anyway.

"It is always stronger," says the albatross, "when there is something to miss. The pain of separation is only maintained if there is something precious to be separated _from_. That is why Peter asks me to visit."

"Is _that_ why Peter comes to drink with me," says Elias, and he can’t help the cruel set to his smile. Peter huffs and picks up his liquor again. Relicta does not react one way or another.

"Would you like to hear that?" she says. "That he cares for you?"

"Anyone would," says Elias.

"Hm," says Relicta. She tilts her head a little, still regarding him with that bright black-eyed stare. It is delightfully intense; Elias likes her immensely. "You enjoy feeding Peter, then."

"Relicta, really," sighs Peter, apparently at the end of his patience here. He does knock back the rest of his glass, so Elias considers this a benefit. "I am satisfying a lost bet, not calling you in to comment on my personal life."

" _I’m_ your personal life?" asks Elias, properly delighted now.

Peter regards him flatly. "One would think that obvious, Elias."

He cannot help it; he preens. The two halves of Peter Lukas watch him in apparent dismay, and then look at each other. It is unaccountably charming.

"Well!" says Elias, already deeply pleased. "That’s a terribly convenient lead-in. If I may, Relicta, I would like to meet you _properly._ "

"Elias," begins Peter, startled, as though he didn’t _expect_ this. The daemon merely blinks at him.

"Fascinating," she says. "You really think I will let you _touch_ me."

"Oh, I know it," Elias agrees. "After all, it is exactly as you’ve said. Won’t the pain of loss and longing be so much sweeter, once you know what there is to miss?"

"Is _that_ why we’re drinking," mutters Peter. Elias ignores him. The albatross is considering, and she has all his attention, because she is plainly much more interesting than her other half.

"Very well," she says, and her human half— well, her half who still _looks_ human— very nearly chokes on nothing. Elias should pour him another drink. "No one touches me, normally. Not even Peter. It would be something new to miss."

" _Relicta._ "

"What? It will feed Forsaken." She looks at him, and Peter subsides in his chair. "He’s right about that, you know."

"Don’t _tell_ him that. It’ll only make him worse."

"Hm." She turns back to regard Elias with those dark eyes. "But I’d like it. To know what it’s like. To know, when I am alone above the sea, what warmth I might be missing."

Peter groans and buries his face in his hands. Elias leans forward in his chair, arms on his knees.

"I am honored by your choice," he says primly, but the hunger must show on his face because Relicta gives a little scoff. She shuffles her wings and then, bulky and awkward on land, waddles forward.

She is incredibly large. She comes up past his knees, and when he shifts to reach towards her, she just keeps pressing forward. He leans away on instinct, taboo stronger even than his interest, and she spreads those ridiculous wings that knock against his side table and upend his glass of Scotch—

The glass clatters to the ground. The table rocks. There is liquor splashed dark across his nice rug.

And there is an albatross, the soul of Peter Lukas, in his lap.

" _Relicta!_ " it’s half a gasp. Peter has started half out of his chair, but he falters, and after a beat, falls back.

Elias is aware that his eyes are wide, his expression _intent_ , drinking in every speck of this: the bird-soul of Peter in his lap, the feel of her wide-webbed feet across his thighs, how _heavy_ she is. The sense-memory of seaspray and distance, flat white cloudy skies and an endless ocean. And the thrumming, electric, live-wire feeling of connection. Of _touching Peter._

He reaches greedily, and she lets him. She closes her eyes as he dips his fingertips into the fluffy feathers at the edge of her jaw; she lets him rake them down, along her neck and further, through the dense fluff of her breast. She is a waterbird, and her feathering is thick and resilient. He can properly dig his fingers in and _scritch_ with his nails _._

Peter makes a soft but distinctly obscene little noise. Elias hasn’t been this high on pleasure and victory in _years_. He thrills with the intimacy of every touch, every warm little shift of his hands on Peter’s soul.

" _Elias_ ," Peter grits out, but it’s mostly a gasp.

" _Peter,_ " he agrees, and it drips warmth. He is smug and knows it. Intends to _savor_ it. "You are _beautiful._ "

Peter makes a sound that is mostly a moan. Elias does his best to imprint it to memory for later analysis. Or to press back into Peter’s head, someday, to show him _exactly_ how he looks just now: sprawled out half-drunk in Elias’s sitting room, eyes hazy and cheeks flushed, looking lost and terribly vulnerable under Elias’s hands.

Yes, this is going in with the _best_ blackmail, the sweetest stolen treasures in his collection. After all, most of those had been private, and nothing to do with him; this one is deliciously _personal_.

And with that, the albatross leans away. Elias’s fingers are in empty air. He looks into her black eyes, and she looks levelly back.

"Good," she says, softer than he’d expected. "Now I know what it feels like."

She does not leave his lap. Peter gives a little groan that tries for exasperation and merely ends at _exhausted_.

"Elias," he manages, voice cracked, "you do have to let me meet Virgil, now."

"Oh, Peter," rumbles Elias, and is gratified by the way Peter flinches from the hunger in his voice. "I would be _delighted._ "

Peter never meets Virgil, of course. Not properly.

The best he gets is very little at all. Martin Blackwood is drawn tense and terrified, his hare looking ready to bolt by his heels; Elias is wearing orange and bruises; the Archivist is already on his way. And Peter is staring, eyes distant and cold, up to the top of the Panopticon.

At its crest, Virgil sits like a sentinel, watching all. He has not moved in decades. He has not spoken in longer. Below him, in that watchtower, the body of Jonah Magnus is withered and ancient. The _soul_ of Jonah Magnus does not look much better-off: he had been a great and gorgeous owl, once, but now his feathers are silver with cobwebs and his eyes are cracked through with colours that do not exist.

He looks divine like this, though. He is more Beholding than soul, now. Perched above Jonah's head in this ruined place, the center of their patron’s power, he is their crown.

"Oh, Elias," says Peter, so very softly. He still thinks he might win this wager. He still thinks he might be mourning Elias, and hasn’t decided whether he’s simply glad, or also mildly heartbroken; it’s very charming. "You’re worse than I am."

He gives a little laugh, and it’s a familiar one: as though he’s been hit, soft and hurt and _enjoying_ the pain.

"I never knew."

He sounds almost _proud._

But then: "Both of you just— just shut up, I need a second to think—" flusters Martin Blackwood, trying to stand firm and angry in his terror. And so the game properly begins.

Peter never gets to touch his soul, in the end. It’s a pity.

He doesn’t know that there’s enough left of Virgil to notice, anymore. But he would have liked it.

**Author's Note:**

>  **Content warnings for this fic:**  
>  \- Daemon-touching  
> \- Sexual overtones  
> \- Canon-typical Elias Bouchard
> 
>  **Spoilers in this fic:**  
>  \- Refers to events through 159.
> 
>  **Daemons in this fic:**  
>  \- Peter's wandering albatross ( _Diomedea exulans_ ) Relicta - Latin for _deserted_. Because the Lukas family is Like That.  
> \- Jonah's Eurasian eagle-owl ( _Bubo bubo_ ) Virgil - for the character in the the _Divine Comedy_ , because Jonah is enough of an asshole to think this is fitting.  
> \- Martin's European hare ( _Lepus europaeus_ ) Brawne - for the fiancée and muse of Keats.
> 
> Title from _This Empty Northern Hemisphere_ by Gregory Alan Isakov, which is my designated lonelyeyes song and I recommend it highly.


End file.
